Indiana University Athletics
Media Tuesday: Tom Allen
12/15/2020 4:00:00 PM | Football
Below is a partial transcription of the Zoom press conference with Indiana head coach Tom Allen on Tuesday, Dec. 15.
Head Coach Tom Allen
ALLEN: Thank you for joining us today. I want to begin by congratulating Kane Wommack on being named the head coach at the University of South Alabama. I am really proud of him and excited for him and his family for this tremendous opportunity. He was just named a Broyles Award semifinalist, which is two years in a row that one of our coordinators has been in that position. Also, two years in a row where one of those coordinators has been named head coach at the division one leve.l which is a tremendous honor for them and for this program. For them to be able to produce those opportunities for these guys and the play of our team on both sides of the football has resulted in that. That is what you want. That excites me for these good people. But that's called building a program when people want your guys to come and create that environment and the culture that we have created here over in those places. We are excited for them and really happy for Coach and his whole family. Also, I want to congratulate Ty Fryfogle for being named Big Ten Receiver of the Year. This is the first time we have ever had a recipient of that award in our program, and all the other offensive players who were recognized by the Big Ten. They are a great group of young men who have bought in, played extremely hard, and have done everything we have asked them to do by our offensive staff. We will have the defense recognized tomorrow and then specialists on Thursday. Really looking forward to that. Obviously, disappointed that we are not able to play Purdue. It is tough. You have a game like that that both teams put so much value into, both fan bases, both universities. It is a game circled for us, extremely, highly valued by our players and all that we put into it all year long to be able to play that game. So, to not have that opportunity is tough, and I feel for our guys and our coaching staff as well. But it is in the best interest of our players to not put them in that position here this week. We are going to focus our attention on finishing strong and finding out our opponent and bowl destination and preparing for that.
Q. On where things stand in the COVID-19 protocols…
ALLEN: I will be upfront as I can be. We have 28 positive cases, that includes players and coaches, at the tier one level. It's a significant number. We have had those since the Wisconsin game, so that is a lot in a short amount of time which has caused us to be on pause. Today we were able to move forward with trying to do some cohort work trying to get the guys physically prepared in the weight room and some running. The goal is to be able to systematically build off of that and put us in a position to be able to have a regular practice on Monday in preparation. We feel that it will give us two full weeks of bowl prep. We feel good about that and we feel good about those guys who are being monitored. As a program in regard to the testing, we are still doing the daily PCR testing. We have been doing that for a week now just trying to get this thing under control. It has been tough. It has affected a lot of our guys. It is serious and it spreads fast. Unfortunately, that is what we are dealing with, but we feel good about the plan. The medical staff has done a great job at trying to get this corralled and get our guys systemically improving each and every day so we can get to next Monday to be able to have a full two weeks of practice to be at our best on game day for a bowl game.
Q. On the 21-day return to play rule set by the Big Ten…
ALLEN: From a timing perspective and you look at 21 days, that is 21 days until they can compete. They will have, once they clear the cycle of getting to the point where they can start having their heart tests done, which is within the last week of that. Basically, we will be able to give them, based on our calendar, the guys that have tested positive, will have a full week of practice with us preparing for the bowl game, which will allow them to be physically ready to play in the bowl game. We expect to have all our guys there with us ready. The time is very important to have because without it we wouldn't be able to do it, but because we have this amount of time between now and the bowl game, we expect to have all of the guys who finished the season healthy will be able to play in the bowl game.
Q. On getting to a New Year's Six game…
ALLEN: I believe so. It is a unique year and to me every conference has different numbers. Some have more than seven games, some have less than that, and there are several in between those numbers. To be able to play the schedule that we played, playing consecutive Big Ten games, were tough football games and physical football games. I think our guys did a tremendous job of being refocused each week and playing to a level each week, so I think we deserve it. It is a unique year and there will always be debates and arguments about the different conferences, especially when you play a conference-only schedule. Maybe you had a couple teams play a non-conference game or two, but not very many, so I think that when you play in this league and play at that level of physicality week after week it makes a difference. I have coached in other leagues that are not at the Power Five level and from week to week it is not the same from a physicality perspective. I understand that, I have lived that, and I do feel like our guys have done a tremendous job putting themselves in the position at this point. We have done what we have done and there is nothing we can do to change that. We just need to sit and wait to see what happens.
Q, On dealing with the pause in practice…
ALLEN: The guys that have tested positive are in isolation and we have no physical contact with them. Everything is via Zoom. If they do anything that they are involved with us, it is not in person. Their food is delivered to their apartment or dorm so they have pretty much been totally isolated from everybody else. The guys that have not tested positive, we have treated them like they were in quarantine for the last seven days. We came in, tested them in the morning and they would leave. Today was our first day back of having guys here and able to lift, so I was around our healthy guys, but still a pretty skeleton crew. Those guys did some good things today and we will do that for the rest of this week. They are in cohorts, so they are in small groups and will not be together as a full team until the following Monday. We are just trying to handle it the best we can to keep our guys healthy and safe. It is important that we do the things that we are doing with them right now, but we are just trying to be diligent, follow the advice of our medical professionals here, and they are doing a great job.
Q. On concerns about conditioning and getting back into game shape…
ALLEN: I think what we learned most from being paused in July was the true value of wearing a mask while they are in the facility. During lifting workouts, during meetings, just during all those things inside the facility. I think the cohort concept is something we learned and that we have gone back to today, to be able to keep them isolated and not have large groups here. It is mitigating the risk of having guys in close contact with each other as they are training, having meetings and all of those different things. We have done everything on Zoom this week. All of our meetings are going to be on Zoom. Those are the kinds of things that you fall back on. I felt like today was just like we did before we got going. We have been able to go back to those things, kind of have a flow and figure it all out. The guys, the healthy ones, while they were home were given some workouts that they could do in their apartments or in their dorms while they were waiting to get back together. You just kind of fall back on the things that worked the last time you had to do this and then you are able to build from it. I think the biggest thing in trying to keep this team healthy is keeping us apart as much as we can, smaller groups, and using our masks the right way.
Head Coach Tom Allen
ALLEN: Thank you for joining us today. I want to begin by congratulating Kane Wommack on being named the head coach at the University of South Alabama. I am really proud of him and excited for him and his family for this tremendous opportunity. He was just named a Broyles Award semifinalist, which is two years in a row that one of our coordinators has been in that position. Also, two years in a row where one of those coordinators has been named head coach at the division one leve.l which is a tremendous honor for them and for this program. For them to be able to produce those opportunities for these guys and the play of our team on both sides of the football has resulted in that. That is what you want. That excites me for these good people. But that's called building a program when people want your guys to come and create that environment and the culture that we have created here over in those places. We are excited for them and really happy for Coach and his whole family. Also, I want to congratulate Ty Fryfogle for being named Big Ten Receiver of the Year. This is the first time we have ever had a recipient of that award in our program, and all the other offensive players who were recognized by the Big Ten. They are a great group of young men who have bought in, played extremely hard, and have done everything we have asked them to do by our offensive staff. We will have the defense recognized tomorrow and then specialists on Thursday. Really looking forward to that. Obviously, disappointed that we are not able to play Purdue. It is tough. You have a game like that that both teams put so much value into, both fan bases, both universities. It is a game circled for us, extremely, highly valued by our players and all that we put into it all year long to be able to play that game. So, to not have that opportunity is tough, and I feel for our guys and our coaching staff as well. But it is in the best interest of our players to not put them in that position here this week. We are going to focus our attention on finishing strong and finding out our opponent and bowl destination and preparing for that.
Q. On where things stand in the COVID-19 protocols…
ALLEN: I will be upfront as I can be. We have 28 positive cases, that includes players and coaches, at the tier one level. It's a significant number. We have had those since the Wisconsin game, so that is a lot in a short amount of time which has caused us to be on pause. Today we were able to move forward with trying to do some cohort work trying to get the guys physically prepared in the weight room and some running. The goal is to be able to systematically build off of that and put us in a position to be able to have a regular practice on Monday in preparation. We feel that it will give us two full weeks of bowl prep. We feel good about that and we feel good about those guys who are being monitored. As a program in regard to the testing, we are still doing the daily PCR testing. We have been doing that for a week now just trying to get this thing under control. It has been tough. It has affected a lot of our guys. It is serious and it spreads fast. Unfortunately, that is what we are dealing with, but we feel good about the plan. The medical staff has done a great job at trying to get this corralled and get our guys systemically improving each and every day so we can get to next Monday to be able to have a full two weeks of practice to be at our best on game day for a bowl game.
Q. On the 21-day return to play rule set by the Big Ten…
ALLEN: From a timing perspective and you look at 21 days, that is 21 days until they can compete. They will have, once they clear the cycle of getting to the point where they can start having their heart tests done, which is within the last week of that. Basically, we will be able to give them, based on our calendar, the guys that have tested positive, will have a full week of practice with us preparing for the bowl game, which will allow them to be physically ready to play in the bowl game. We expect to have all our guys there with us ready. The time is very important to have because without it we wouldn't be able to do it, but because we have this amount of time between now and the bowl game, we expect to have all of the guys who finished the season healthy will be able to play in the bowl game.
Q. On getting to a New Year's Six game…
ALLEN: I believe so. It is a unique year and to me every conference has different numbers. Some have more than seven games, some have less than that, and there are several in between those numbers. To be able to play the schedule that we played, playing consecutive Big Ten games, were tough football games and physical football games. I think our guys did a tremendous job of being refocused each week and playing to a level each week, so I think we deserve it. It is a unique year and there will always be debates and arguments about the different conferences, especially when you play a conference-only schedule. Maybe you had a couple teams play a non-conference game or two, but not very many, so I think that when you play in this league and play at that level of physicality week after week it makes a difference. I have coached in other leagues that are not at the Power Five level and from week to week it is not the same from a physicality perspective. I understand that, I have lived that, and I do feel like our guys have done a tremendous job putting themselves in the position at this point. We have done what we have done and there is nothing we can do to change that. We just need to sit and wait to see what happens.
Q, On dealing with the pause in practice…
ALLEN: The guys that have tested positive are in isolation and we have no physical contact with them. Everything is via Zoom. If they do anything that they are involved with us, it is not in person. Their food is delivered to their apartment or dorm so they have pretty much been totally isolated from everybody else. The guys that have not tested positive, we have treated them like they were in quarantine for the last seven days. We came in, tested them in the morning and they would leave. Today was our first day back of having guys here and able to lift, so I was around our healthy guys, but still a pretty skeleton crew. Those guys did some good things today and we will do that for the rest of this week. They are in cohorts, so they are in small groups and will not be together as a full team until the following Monday. We are just trying to handle it the best we can to keep our guys healthy and safe. It is important that we do the things that we are doing with them right now, but we are just trying to be diligent, follow the advice of our medical professionals here, and they are doing a great job.
Q. On concerns about conditioning and getting back into game shape…
ALLEN: I think what we learned most from being paused in July was the true value of wearing a mask while they are in the facility. During lifting workouts, during meetings, just during all those things inside the facility. I think the cohort concept is something we learned and that we have gone back to today, to be able to keep them isolated and not have large groups here. It is mitigating the risk of having guys in close contact with each other as they are training, having meetings and all of those different things. We have done everything on Zoom this week. All of our meetings are going to be on Zoom. Those are the kinds of things that you fall back on. I felt like today was just like we did before we got going. We have been able to go back to those things, kind of have a flow and figure it all out. The guys, the healthy ones, while they were home were given some workouts that they could do in their apartments or in their dorms while they were waiting to get back together. You just kind of fall back on the things that worked the last time you had to do this and then you are able to build from it. I think the biggest thing in trying to keep this team healthy is keeping us apart as much as we can, smaller groups, and using our masks the right way.
Players Mentioned
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